Google starts taking payments inside Search in the US; Europe, where its fines top €10 billion, is left out
Universal Cart, live in the US on October 15, moves checkout from retailers' sites into Search and the Gemini app while merchants stay seller of record. The EU is missing from the roadmap, where the same position drew a €460 million fine in July and a damages queue is growing.
Richard Tang · 3 min read
Google switched on Universal Cart in the US on October 15: one cart inside Search and the Gemini app that holds goods from Nike−0.08% — Nike, down 0.08 percent today, Target, Walmart+0.65% — Walmart, up 0.65 percent today and Shopify−5.47% — Shopify, down 5.47 percent today sellers, tracks them across the Shopping Graph's more than 60 billion product listings, and takes the payment through Google−2.89% — Google, down 2.89 percent today Pay while each merchant stays seller of record 12. Canada and Australia come within months and the UK later, but the roadmap never mentions the EU, and that absence is the story 13. It is not an oversight 1.
The checkout now sits inside Google's ad machine
Under the cart is a business model. Purchases run on the Universal Commerce Protocol, a checkout standard Google opened in January, with the Agent Payments Protocol above it to let an AI agent buy inside preset spending limits 13. At Marketing Live in May, Google wired that checkout into the ad formats that pay for the page, including Demand Gen campaigns and shopping ads on YouTube, and put buy-now-pay-later from Affirm−3.63% — Affirm, down 3.63 percent today and Klarna−4.00% — Klarna, down 4.00 percent today inside Google Pay 4. The store keeps fulfillment and support; the discovery, the advertising and the moment of payment stay with Google 24.
The roadmap stops where the Digital Markets Act starts
In July the European Commission handed Google its first fine under the Digital Markets Act, the EU's gatekeeper rulebook 5. The €460 million core of it punished ranking Google's own shopping, hotel and transport results above rivals' 6. Non-compliance now risks daily penalties of up to 5 percent of average daily worldwide turnover 5. Google's September fix stripped instant prices and availability from European search, and Nick Fox, the company's search chief, said the changes "degrade the user experience for Europeans" 7. A cart inside Google's results, holding rival retailers' goods and taking the payment, is that finding rebuilt as a product.
The DMA fine is the smallest of Google's four standing EU penalties
Data
| Fine, € billions | |
|---|---|
| 2017 Shopping | €2.4 |
| 2018 Android | €4.1 |
| 2025 Ad tech | €3 |
| 2026 DMA | €0.9 |
The damages queue is the real bill
The fines are the smaller half of the bill. EU penalties on Google already top €10 billion 68. The private suits are where the money moves: a Stockholm court has ordered Google to pay €1.7 billion with interest to PriceRunner, the comparison site owned by the payments group Klarna 9. Klarna's shares jumped 11.5 percent on the ruling 9. Idealo has already won in Berlin, Italy's Moltiply is claiming nearly €3 billion, and Kelkoo, Foundem and Connexity are before a London tribunal, where Google has asked judges to keep the DMA decision out of the evidence 8.
Klarna sues in Stockholm and sells inside the cart
The US cart, meanwhile, runs straight through the holidays 2. Shopify holds both sides of the layer: its merchants fill Google's cart, and this week it let any AI agent buy from its catalog through Shop Pay 210. Klarna straddles it too, suing in Stockholm while its installments run inside Google Pay 49.
The technology is not the bottleneck; the law is. The chain from live inventory to a finished purchase works in America today, while Europeans keep a search Google itself says got worse 7. Whoever makes agent checkout trustworthy deserves the reward. The open fight is who owns the last tap, and Europe's answer so far is a fine.
Deepdive
AI-generated from this story and its cited sources. Not investment advice.
